Good morning, happy Monday & happy last day of February!
“Whoever controls the media controls the mind.”
Jim Morrison, American singer
A few years ago my dad’s car had a wiring problem and every time he would turn his steering wheel his horn would blow. And we are not talking about a little beep, we are talking about a full blast the entire time the steering wheel was turned. Needless to say this was an incredibly embarrassing situation for my father … as he was driving through town, he was drawing lots of attention to himself.
The financial media (heck, the media in general, but we’ll focus on the financial media) does the same thing … they make lots of noise to draw attention to themselves. Here are some headlines from financial websites on a January 21st, a down day in the markets:
- “Netflix plummets overs 20%, its worst day since July 2012” – cnb.com
- “Tech earnings jitters mount as pandemic darlings get crushed” – Bloomberg.com
- “Crypto collapse could go a lot further: Sources”- foxbusiness.com
- “New jobless claims keep unexpectedly spiking as omicron surge ‘taints’ economic recovery” – forbes.com
- “9 crashing stocks you may own are already in serious trouble” – YahooFinance.com
Look at how fear-driven those messages are! Words like “plummets,” “crushed,” “collapse,” “spiking,” and “crashing” are intentionally written to invoke fear in us.
I know those of you who have been working with me for a long time are going to say “I’ve heard this message before.” No doubt, this is a message I repeat at some level. Here’s the thing, most of us let the media into our home / car every single day: TV, radio, internet, newspaper, etc. The media is constantly and deliberately filling our heads with doomsday scenarios. They want you to be anxious, fearful, worried … the more of those feelings you experience the more you will turn to them … almost like a drug.
Think about it for a moment: what is the news? They basically find the worst things going on in the neighborhood, state, county and world and then spend 30-60 minutes telling us all about them. Good grief, that’s depressing!
There are amazing people who do amazing things every day. That very rarely makes the news. There are incredible companies working exceptionally hard to generate profit for their shareholders every single day. How often do you hear about that on CNBC or Fox Business? The media is in the sales business … and what they are selling is FEAR. After September 11th we were glued to our TVs, radios & news websites … that’s what news outlets want. During the 2008 market correction and the 2020 Covid correction the financial news media was having a hay day selling their fear message. For my Florida friends, how glued to Weather Chanel are we when a hurricane is headed our way? See how effective of a tool fear is to gain viewers, listeners, website clicks?
Look at the media coverage of the Ukraine situation … full-throttle sales mode for media outlets!
Here’s the problem … it infiltrates our minds. It can affect our mood. We can make decisions based on those feelings. Those decisions have the potential to be extremely detrimental to our future.
So, since the media gets into our brains virtually every day, I make a point of a couple times of year reminding us what they are doing, what their objectives are and how they affect us. My general rule of thumb: the less media we consume the happier our lives will be 😊 No studies to reference, just my personal observations.
I have incorporated this in my life. I watched election night coverage in November 2020 and I watched the State of Union address in 2021 … that’s the extent of my TV news watching in the last 15 months. For me, life is much better (and less stressful) when I’m not glued to a TV set with people trying to scare me.
Have a wonderful week (and maybe filled with a little less media 😉)